KEVIN MORRIS

Who was Kevin Morris? He was a friend to everyone. Try going to Palmdale and prove me wrong. Find someone, anyone, with whom he couldn’t get along. He was an amazing athlete, team captain, brother, son, friend, cousin, and classmate. You need him, he’d be there. Ok, maybe he might be late, but he’d stay until the job was done either way. He had a contagious laugh and a radiant smile. He had a way with words that could brighten any darkness, and was always there with a listening ear anytime I needed him. He was one of the most important men in my life. Everything he was, ended so swiftly during a birthday celebration, one night.

What could Kevin Morris have been? Anything he set his mind to really. The sky would’ve been the limit, if any existed. I don’t know what he would have chosen to be had he gotten the chance to live beyond the age of twenty, but he didn’t. That opportunity was stolen just over twenty years ago by a couple of guys that decided to shoot up a birthday party for whatever reason they thought was enough. Surely though, it wasn’t. How could it have been? No one opened fire on them. Kevin was shot trying to flee. Why not just let him be? Why take his life? And since that was the decision that was made that night, why would those men, Jose Luna included, and I use the word men here quite loosely, why then, would those men that destroyed him with those weapons be given the chance to go on with theirs, free to do it again? Is it that they are more important than he? Certainly not to me. Not to anyone I know because to this day we still grieve. Our friend is gone forever, and the short time these men have served in captivity for their brutality is nowhere near enough. Justice here has yet been served. They’ve stolen the life Kevin Morris deserved.

They stole from us one of the greatest humans I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He could’ve been a pro football player or maybe a coach. He could’ve become a teacher or a lawyer or a counselor or business owner. The man could’ve been anything he could’ve wanted, but thanks to them he’s only gone. He’ll never reclaim his stolen days, not one. Why should they get theirs back? Why so soon? The prison running out of room? Let out some of these folks doing time for selling marijuana sacks by the dime. Don’t release the life thieves. Don’t release the murders, please.